Control and surveillance of industrial processes are normally handled from a control room in which information of the process is displayed on a plurality of monitors to an operator. In the certain application, such as processes for offshore and maritime systems, it is desirable to mount the monitors in vicinity to an operator chair for holding the monitors at reading distance and within reach of the operator for enabling controlling of the process by means of a touch screen interface.
Combined with long working shifts where the operator has to be in a relaxed body posture, it is desirable to have the monitors mounted on the operator chair itself in order to comply with ergonomic requirements.
The device for holding monitors is often the component of the monitor chair that is subjected to the highest mechanical stress. Firstly, the monitors normally may be of significant size and weight. For example, monitors with a screen size of between 19″ and 24″ are commonly used and each monitor may have a weight over 10 kg. Furthermore, even if they are not normally intended to be used as such, the monitors may be used as handles by the operator in dynamic environments, such as on ships and etcetera.
Moreover, several monitors are usually needed to provide the operator with sufficient information of the industrial process. In a desirable configuration for offshore and maritime systems, two monitors are arranged on the front and to the left of the monitor chair and two monitors are arranged on the front and to the right of the monitor chair. This configuration allows the entire graphical user interface of the process to be displayed to the operator. A problem with the configuration is that the monitors hinder the operator from entering and exiting the operator chair in an easy manner. Furthermore, from ergonomic point of view the device should hold the monitors so that the content displayed there on is below eye height of the operator. Accordingly, the monitors are required to be arranged side by side and not on top of each other. A further requirement is that the most important information should be displayed with a +−45 degree angle of the viewing direction of the operator in order to limit the extent to which the operator have to move his eyes. The monitors should also be arranged so that they are directed towards the eyes of the operator in order to avoid glare on the screen of the monitors that reduces readability of information.